#Thunderscience

[lucky-cleric]

Thor: Bruce makes me feel things. It makes me want to do nice things for him to make him happy

Tony: Thor, I think you just have a crush on him

Thor: but I don’t wish to crush him?

[superiorkenshi]

[herbirdglitter]

Silly little thorbruce fanfic

[shulamite]

Turning fanfic into epubs

[tj-dragonblade]

Fanfic question 1 for your Thor/Bruce “You think this troubles me?”

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

The Fic

Choosing to interpret the question as a simple 'What inspired you to write this fic?' Okay, so. There was a notable shift in Thor's characterization in Ragnarok from the movies that had come before, and I wanted to address it with Watsonian reasoning. And one of the earliest headcanons I had from back in 2012 was that the way Thor talked was something of a turn-on for Bruce, so those two things dovetailed very nicely with the 'You think this troubles me?' prompt question and this little ficlet was born.

Behind the Scenes Author Asks

[hebuiltfive]

::Nodding enthusiastically whilst not really understanding much::

But in all seriousness, this is actually super interesting. Science makes my brain hurt, but it's worth it when there are mysteries, or rather inaccuracies, to be solved.

hey um. what's geostationary orbit and why is it impossible for TAG's TB5 to achieve?

Hello!! I'm assuming you're coming in from the stack of memes I made lol so welcome welcome, this is my well-known pet peeve and I will happily explain because it involves my favourite subject - physics!

"Impossible to achieve" isn't quite accurate - my argument is formed purely on the observational evidence of where it is, such that when the show makes references to TB5 being in geostationary orbit it doesn't make sense because it's simply.... not.

So strap in, I'll go through this as clearly as I can but feel free to ask follow up questions :D Or just generally hang out lol TAG is a fun time despite the handwave-y physics ahaha :D

1. What is geostationary orbit?

Geostationary orbit is the specific orbit where a satellite/space station/whatever moves with the exact same period as the Earth's rotation i.e. 24 hours AND is placed so that the object is directly over the equator, it will move in that orbit at the same rate as the location it is over, so that it will always be over that position at all times. This gives it the name "geostationary", implying that the Earth doesn't move relative to the orbiting object, or if you look down you'll always see the same place.

Both conditions must be met for geostationary orbit to occur; an orbit with a greater or lower period will fall out of step with the Earth fairly quickly, and if not on the equator, you'll get a related type of orbit known as a geosynchronous orbit which will move up and down relative to the equator rather than staying put.

Furthermore, I won't take you through the calculation (1 | 2 | 3), but using Kepler's Third Law which is sufficiently accurate for this scenario, this orbit must always be ~36,000 km above the Earth, or the quoted 22,500 miles in the show. That is the main evidence in the show that implies that the writers intended for TB5 to be in geostationary orbit, like TOS was written to be.

However....

2. Why can't TB5 be in geostationary orbit?

It's not that it can't, it's that it isn't! There's two main reasons for this that I return to when grumbling about this to my friends (they are long-suffering on this point lol thank goodness they're reasonably good-humoured about it...)

Reason 1: The size of the Earth from TB5

This is the most damning evidence. Let's make some visual comparisons.

This is what the Earth looks like from the International Space Station which maintains an orbit about 400 km above the surface of the Earth (in a region known as Low Earth Orbit).

It's a little more complicated to show what Earth looks like from geostationary orbit as many satellites in this region are communication relays or broadcasting satellites (very appropriate for TB5 it must be said!!) But that being said, this is a full disk image of Earth from Japan's Himawari 5, a weather satellite in geostationary orbit.

Now take a look at the animation in TAG and decide for yourself what was being used as inspiration!

But I'm a physics nerd, so I won't take blind faith in some pictures! No, no - if there's a specific height that an orbit must maintain in order to remain in this orbit and the size of the Earth doesn't change, then it should follow that the Earth must be some kind of stable "apparent" size that we can figure out. Think about a freestanding house from 40 m away. It doesn't matter in which direction the 40m is, the house takes up the same space in our vision. The same follows here.

Once again, I'll gloss over the calculations ( 1 | 2 | 3) and simply state that from geostationary orbit, the Earth should take up no more than about 20° of our field of vision. In comparison the visual angle of the Moon is about 0.5° so it's still going to look really big!! But not as big as you'd see from the ISS :P If you make both hands into fists, place them next to each other and hold them at arms length from your body, that would be the approximately the width of the Earth from geostationary orbit.

So TB5?

....might be a wee bit closer than that 😂

Reason 2: The locations on Earth

This one's a little looser, but it illustrates my second point - in order to be geostationary, TB5 needs to..... stay over one location? Like okay sure it has rockets and engines so that it's able to move around, we've seen them plenty of times. But that doesn't change that fact that even when these are not in use, TB5 is never in one place.

Here's some examples…

The Strait of Gibraltar (Spain and Morocco) | 1x07 (Runaway)

Looks like Japan in the background to me | 1x07 (Runaway)

Ireland and Great Britain | 1x08: EOS

Cheating a tad, but he's only just launched so it's reasonable to assume that here TB5 is over SE Asia | 2x02 (Ghost Ship)

None of these are examples where John's manoeuvred TB5 into position like he does in Skyhook (1x11) and Impact (2x09) so it's reasonable to assume that TB5 is following its assigned orbit... and its not geostationary!

Moral of the story: TB5 could be in geostationary orbit, there's nothing stopping it! But uh... it's not. Thanks for listening ;D

All images stolen either from the thunderbirds wiki, or I've attached a click through link to their origin :)

[captainenjolras]

Me and the bad bitch I pulled by being autistic

[dadstielkline]

i don't fully trust anyone who hates thorbruce bc why??? like they are so wholesome and unproblematic it makes no sense to hate them

[imposterogers]

actually one of my favorite thor & bruce scenes is when they’re talking about escaping sakaar and bruce goes ‘that looks like a collapsing neutron star inside of an einstein-rosen bridge’ and thor says ‘we need [a ship] that can withstand the geodetic strain from the singularity’ and they slowly move closer to each other riffing about science thinking ‘omg he’s so fucking hot smart’ and looking into each others eyes while valkyrie drinks in the background 

[late-to-the-party-81]

Aaaaaahhh! I love it so much!

Thor and Bruce bond over Minecraft. Fluff ensues.

Read the fic on Ao3!

[ancientsstudies]

They sicken of the calm who know the storm.

[mutantbanner]

Another ThorBruce collab between me and @tronsgender... God I love these guys so much

[alex-wizard-413]

:/ i fail to see what is the issue. The real question is "Why would a giant science corp need me, the living embodiment of "fuck you got mine" to the evry concept of magic, to talk to some shark people?" Literally every non-feral anthrogyneomorph species known across the multiverse is capable of understand human speech, and either learn human or human-adjacient languages OR teach other humans their language.

*notices your stare of Bro What R U Yapping About*

Uh- ok so lemme rephrase. So. It is widely known that i am one of at least 37 RECORDED (serious emphasis on that one) wizard and/or magic attuned beings with special status. Others are Faye (Fey-Vampire with both life and death powers), Mon (genuine Erotomancy), That one shroom satyr guy (island-limited technical omnisight because every blue-capped shroom is part of one giant network of fungi that serve as a massive CCTV system), and the myconid witch (had rot based memery but then realized that shes basically the Doctor from Doctor Who except shaped like a 2mt slugcat).

Now. With that said. If all they need is a traslator, they could've gotten one at the main hub of the island. Which means that whatever tf im here for, is NOT "talking to the one piece fishmen temu edition becaise their language is one of the unrecorded ones". They may have SOME ability i am not aware of, since this is the first time i even HEARD of this Thunderscience Institution or whatever tf is this place named.

Heyy, did you miss us? Betcha did element-boy, but regardless... you are being "surprise adopted", don't resist or your legs might break!

- @rage-the-symbiote

(Blinks blankly)

(Sighs) do you have like. A box where i can fit. I have questions but you look like you need to hu-

(Yawn) (sleep is important lol)

Waa... also hey... you're that klyntarr my creator told me... Rage, isnt it?

You look cool ngl. Where is the box to put me in. I wanna do my best nezuko impression

ᗜ _ᗜ <- pure autism

[spinchling]

Thor in a staged voice: Oh no, we're under the missile's toes, whatever shall we do?

Bruce *pinching the bridge of his nose*: Thor, it's Valentine's Day...

[allthemarrowoflife]

okay, listen.

i'm obsessed with the idea of thor settling down and taking up witchcraft as a way to reconnect with his family and throw a big fuck you to his people's old belief that you can either be a strong warrior or a magic user, not both, and that being the later is unbecoming for the royal family of odin the allfather, responsible for setting an example for their people. he remembers the weird looks and disappointed stares loki used to deal with for that exact reason, remembers frigga starting to tie her hair up and only use her abilities in front of her children, when no one else was around.

except he's on midgard now and wants to also honour his love for this realm, so instead of studying the illusions and the elaborate spellwork of asgardian magic, he takes up earth magic. and i don't mean the ancient sorcery of doctor strange and the other masters of the mystic arts. i mean actual earth human magic, with plants and oils and balms and incenses and crystals.

he grows his herbs with the utmost love and care in the backyard of his and bruce's cottage in new asgard, uses them for tea and smoke cleasing and healing.

he keeps dozens of little crystals on their bedside, gives them the purpose of helping with sleep and nightmares and depression and anxiety.

he, too, was raised by a witch, so he, too, can see with more than eyes, even if he doesn't know the technicalities of what he's doing or how he knows that stuff, so divination and intuition and dream work are particularly easy for him.

he times his appointments with the placements of stars and planets and dives deep back into his love for astronomy.

he uses the water from his storms to water the plants and make baths to that bring strength.

i don't know, i just love the mental image of this norse god bigger than a fridge painting his nails with colours that match his intent for the week, fussing over his small scientist husband with lavender and chamomile tea because "you are stressed and anxious, my love, i brewed this for you, my herbs were fresh", walking around his beloved little cottage burning dried rosemary to clean the energy, getting excited about the phases of the midgardian moon, when wanda shows up ultra powerful with her chaos magic and goes "i'm a witch" he answers "oh norns, me too!!!", leaving everyone else completely confused.

LET THOR BE A WITCH LIKE HIS MOTHER AND HIS SIBLING. PLEASE. I WANT HIM TO BE HAPPY IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK???

[thesunbettershineonthemagain]

just had a dream last night where bruce banner was gifted a guitar as a wedding gift so he and thor went into the village and bruce played the guitar while thor sang to the little kids in town and AAAAAAAA i loved it so much it’s canon now